Beyond the Sea

by Phoenixofslytherin

Things didn't go quite to plan in the Battle of Hogwarts and in the two years that followed. Hermione Granger was kidnapped, Voldemort was victorius and things seemed hopeless. After her daring rescue, a new uprising begins. The members of the new resistance are diverse, and unexpected relatioships are forming. Will they succeed and claim victory where everyone else has failed?

11. Patrols

Story Notes

Oh my goodness... I'm so sorry that this update has been sooooooo long coming. Basically, I've had a nightmare couple of weeks, poorly children, poorly animals too, and just about every other little thing that could go wrong has gone wrong... I would like to wholeheartedly apologise for the extreme lateness here, and to thank everyone who is still with us and is sticking with this story. It will get there eventually, I promise!

So. Here we are then, finally, after the semi cliffhanger of the last chapter, we find out what happened on Draco's patrol and we have the part you've all (hopefully) been waiting for! I won't say too much more now here because of spoilers, but lets just say that we hope you all like the ending! ;-)

Thank you as always to champagne, the best writing partner I could wish for. XXxx

I hope all of our readers are having a wonderful week, and we will see you in a week and a half... I'm writing my socks off to make sure the next update is out on time!

Lots of love, Claire (Phoneix.) XXxxx

Beyond The Sea - Chapter 11. Patrols.

Hermione gave up trying to sleep at five o'clock in the morning. The small amount of rest that she had managed had been fitful, she'd tossed and turned through most of the night, and now that the sun was coming up she was wide awake. Although she'd have liked to blame her inability to settle on her lingering internal injuries, she knew that on this night at least, she had been kept awake by something else.

She hadn't been able to sleep because she had been too worried about Draco.

He had apparated away at ten pm to cover Theo's patrol, and it had taken every ounce of her rapidly returning strength to stop herself from kissing him goodbye. She had been missing him desperately ever since he'd left.

She had woken for the first time at midnight when the walls of the cottage had glowed red. After a few moments of wondering whether it had been Theo and Harry, or Pansy and Ron who had consummated their elemental bond, she had distracted herself by reading a few more pages of the enormous book. Eventually, drowsiness had overtaken her, and she had settled down into a fitful sleep, finally waking up at five and slipping down into the kitchen to wait for Draco, who was due in at six.

Blaise was already sitting at the table, a cup of coffee in his hand and several parchment plans spread out in front of him. "Morning," he grinned cheerfully, "You're up early."

"So are you," she countered, crossing to the sink then filling a glass with water.

"I'm due in work early today," he explained. "Plus, I want a quick debrief with Draco before I go. Theo's intel was slightly concerning last night. I want to know what's happening before I walk into the viper's nest."

"I don't blame you." She shivered as she sat down at the table opposite him. The danger that he, Draco, Theo, and Pansy were all placing themselves in suddenly seemed much more real after the events of the previous day. "Blaise, can I ask you something, please?" she asked hesitantly.

"Of course," he flipped his reading glasses up onto his head and gazed at her kindly. "What's wrong?"

"I feel like I'm going crazy," she admitted with a frustrated sigh. "With all of these bonds going on around me, my feelings for Draco changed considerably yesterday. I feel strange this morning." Blaise waited, saying nothing as she rubbed a hand over her face and attempted to smooth her crazy corkscrew curls. "How do I know if these new feelings I have for Draco are really my own?" She looked up into his intense brown eyes, desperate for him to answer the question that had been bothering her all night. "How do I know it isn't just the elemental magic that's pushing me towards him?"

Blaise sipped his coffee with a frown. "I guess to a certain extent you can't know that," he admitted, "but I'm wondering if the difference really matters anyway? Why is it so important for you to separate the two reasons in your mind? I can't tell you what you're feeling I'm afraid, Hermione, I can only tell you how things felt for me."

He shuffled his papers, choosing a different one to study while Hermione picked thoughtfully at her nails. "Did it not matter to you?" she asked eventually.

"Not really," he admitted. "I've been aware of Ginny for years. I've fancied her, admired her, hated her, been frustrated, not to mention infuriated by her since I was twelve years old. What I have never once felt towards her was indifference. Now you could say that my intense feelings for her were a diluted effect of the elemental magic. If our eventual destiny was to be bonded, we would have felt that energy even when we were children. Or, you could say that we were naturally attracted to each other, and the magic just enhanced that. I don't think I particularly care which it is, since whatever the reason, I now get to wake up beside her every morning."

Hermione stared at him blankly as her mind continued to race. Had she been looking at this from the wrong angle all along? Was it possible that it didn't matter why she wanted Draco? The change in her feelings felt very sudden, but if she compared her past experiences with Draco to the way Blaise described his long held feelings for Ginny, they were almost identical. She had felt all of the things Blaise had described and more for Draco since they had all been children.

She nodded slowly, eventually concluding that Blaise was right. It didn't really matter what the reason was. She just wanted Draco. Still feeling highly disconcerted, she frowned, resolving to give the issue more thought when she was alone. "Can I ask what you're looking at?" she asked, feeling the need for a change of subject.

"Of course." She saw Blaise hide what looked like a knowing smirk as he twitched a piece of parchment towards her. "These are the safehouses where the remaining members of the Order of the Phoenix are hiding out. These are the ones we know about anyway. We think we've got most of them now thanks to Harry, Ron, and Ginny's inside knowledge. The order is currently in complete disarray. It has no leader, and all of its remaining members are just laying low, hidden under various layers of protection charms. These houses here have already been raided, while these ones," he gestured to the maps on his right, "remain undetected by anyone other than us so far. This house here is set to be raided next week."

Blaise hovered a finger over the sketched diagram of a house. Hermione leaned forwards to read the neatly printed handwriting underneath and choked on thin air. "But that's Seamus and Dean's house!" she gasped. "After Dean was captured for the first time, they went back to Ireland to be safe! You can't raid their house! They haven't done anything to warrant this, surely?!"

"Hermione," Blaise sighed wearily, "it's not me that wants to raid it. And they can't be completely innocent. They've obviously done something that's caught the Dark Lord's attention, and also, somehow, they've broken their protection charms. He suspects them of being active for the Order, and his suspicions are usually based on fact. We don't have any choice," Blaise sighed, "we have to follow orders I'm afraid. But we do have a plan to keep-"

"Of course, you have a choice!" Hermione exclaimed, jumping up from her chair to glare heatedly at Blaise. "Everyone has a choice! Why can't you all just refuse to do it?! And why are you looking at me like that?"

"Feeling a bit stronger now, are you?" he asked, raising a single, insolent brow and managing to look almost as skeptically arrogant as Draco often did. Furiously she spun in a circle, stretching out her fingers as they fizzed with magic. Tiny blue sparks were running along her skin, something that hadn't happened for a very long time.

"Oh, my, sweet Circe, I remember why you used to infuriate me so much in school now!" She said with a huff, then let out a hollow laugh as she watched the sparks fade away and her temper spike calm. "I do feel better. I feel amazing, actually! I mean, my ribs still ache, but this is an incredible improvement. I'd never have had the strength to shout at you like that before, would I? What's happened to me in the last twenty four hours?"

Blaise's smirk widened, "Well, I could hazard a guess, but I might be too infuriating to share it with you-"

Guiltily Hermione clapped a hand over her mouth, "Wait! Oh no! Did I say that out loud? Oh Gods…. I'm so sorry, Blaise! I didn't mean, I-" she broke off feeling horrified. Caught up in her excitement, she had blurted out her thoughts without realizing how incredibly rude they were.

"Oh, relax. I'm only teasing you," Blaise said with a genuine grin. "I know you didn't like me at school. For what it's worth, I wasn't overly keen on you at that time either. I think things are a little different now. I think what's happening here is simply group healing. There are eight of us. Six of us have bonded already. Two pairs are fully bonded if the red light in the night was anything to go by. It's said that an elemental group like us shares energy and healing between its members. Six of us have come together, and I'd guess that you're feeling the benefit of that already. Also, didn't Draco outright admit to partly healing you yesterday?"

Hermione sat back down with her heart pounding as Harry and Theo stumbled into the kitchen, holding hands and looking highly disheveled. "What are you two yelling about at this time in the morning?" Theo asked, pointing his wand at the coffee machine and giving an enormous yawn. "Cushioning charm, Potter," he chuckled, watching Harry sit down with a wince.

Blaise wrinkled his nose. "Far too much information Theodore. So it was you two that made the walls glow red last night then?"

"Yep," Theo grinned, looking delighted, while Harry flushed, closed his eyes and laughed.

Blaise grinned while Harry met Hermione's eyes in a somewhat resigned manner, then smiled as she nodded her approval. "Congratulations to both of you then. And since you're here, you can both help me. There's a planned raid on Finnigan Cottage next week. He's going, which means it's going to be a big one, and therefore we'll all be going. Harry, we're going to need you to work your magic on Nagini."

Harry only faltered for a moment. "Finnigan cottage? As in Seamus and Dean's house?" he asked, frowning at Blaise's nod. "You're going to warn them first, right?"

Blaise shook his head. "We can't afford to. Not until the very last moment, anyway. But I'm working on a plan to get them safely out during the raid. If it works, and if the intel you gave Draco last night is correct, Theo, this could be the thing that blows everything sky high. If we're clever enough about it, If everything works out, I think we can split the ranks 60/40 in our favor, and we might even be able to take out a couple of the big guns simultaneously.

Theo paused, then turned to face Blaise at the table. "Seriously, B, what the hell are you and Draco planning now?"

"Hopefully, the beginning of the end of this war," Blaise said.

Theo closed his eyes and sighed. He took the cup from under the spout of the coffee machine, handed it to Harry, then put another one underneath. "If you get me killed, Zabini, I swear to Salazar I'll come back as a ghost and haunt you till your dying day. I'll be more irritating than Peeves as well."

"Some would say you're already more irritating than Peeves," Blaise shot back, cutting him off with a grin. "And you threaten me with that daily. A little more faith, please. I've got a perfect track record of not getting you killed so far."

Theo grimaced, then crossed to the table with his own mug. Instead of sitting down, he stood behind Harry and dropped a hand possessively onto his shoulder. "Keep it that way, please, and don't get my new boyfriend killed either. We all know his self preservation skills are a little… deficient. What do I have to do?" Hermione hid her gasp of surprise as Harry leaned his head softly into Theo's chest. She'd rarely seen him be that affectionate with anybody before, not even Ginny.

Blaise narrowed his eyes, looking thoughtful as he studied his notes. "Find out Yaxley's true loyalties please, Theo. Draco relayed the intel you shared with him last night and it confirms my suspicions. I've had my doubts about Corban too. I need you to test a theory out for me. I think Yaxley's just terrible at Occlumency. I think Thorfinn or more likely Antonin, has locked his mind down for his own protection, and I think they've also given him fake memories so that anyone who invades his mind sees those instead of his real ones."

Theo nodded his agreement. "If the three of them are as close as we know them to be, it makes no sense that Yax is a bad guy. But, B," he continued, suddenly looking alarmed, "if that's the case, then they must know we're looking into people's minds."

"Not necessarily," Blaise shook his head. "It could just as easily have been done to protect him from the Dark Lord. If he were to look into Yaxley's unguarded mind, then he'd see all of their plans, and they won't want that. We've considered locking Pansy's mind down for the same reason, haven't we? The only reason we haven't done it already is because she's so against it. Maybe we should ask her again now that this is all getting so intense. Don't worry about the reasons why it's been done to Yaxley, Theo, just find out if it has actually been done, please."

Theo nodded, sipping his coffee while carding his fingers through Harry's unruly hair. Harry stiffened but didn't pull away from Theo's touch. Hermione gave him another encouraging smile, as strange as it was to see Harry with anyone other than Ginny, she had to admit that he and Theo looked right together.

"Harry, I want you, Ron, and Ginny to scope out Finnigan's place today. Take the cloak and disillusion yourselves. Do NOT let Seamus or Dean see you. I know they're old friends of yours, but it is imperative they don't know this raid is coming. I'll clear my plan with Draco this evening, then I'll share the details with you all. I'm going to need drawn maps and viewable memories of the inside and the outside of their place. Ideally I'd like a walk through of all the rooms, and I'll need hairs from both of them for polyjuice please. How's the latest batch coming, Theo?"

"Hair?!" Harry yelped, "How am I supposed to gather their hair without them noticing?" he asked, looking horrified.

"Oh come on," Theo gave Harry's own hair a mischievous tug, "Imperio then Obliviate. Or better yet, skip the Imperio, tug a few hairs out while you're invisible, then use the Obliviate. Or, if you're really determined to abide by the law, just use a Confundus spell if they notice. Don't give me those innocent green eyes, Harry. I know you've used all of those spells before. The polyjuice will be ready by the weekend, B."

Harry looked as if he was about to protest when a swirl of black smoke suddenly filled the kitchen. "Fuck!" Draco cursed violently as the smoke cleared. "Wanking, buggering, bloody, fucking fuck!"

Theo laughed loudly while Blaise raised his eyebrow yet again. "Morning, did I miss an exciting patrol?"

"That man is an impossible, wanking, sodding, arse!" Draco exploded, taking his mask off and dropping it onto the table with a clatter that made Hermione jump. "Sorry, love. Fucking Dolohov!" Draco took a deep breath, then sighed dramatically and collapsed into an unoccupied chair.

"That's quite a combination of names you've called him," Theo smirked. "What the hell's he done?!"

Draco ignored Theo in favor of looking Blaise straight in the eye. "He knows, Zabini. He knows what we're doing. He'd set a trap for you last night, Theo. He wasn't best pleased when I turned up instead. Oh, he wasn't going to hurt you. He was just going to get inside your mind and have a good rummage around. No offence, but my Occlumency is stronger than yours, and I've struggled to keep him out all night. You'd never have done it for that long. Five separate Imperio's he's tried to hit me with too. Five! You're also right. He can use legilimency on the Dark Lord. It's been a power struggle all night. I'm exhausted." Draco slumped backwards in his chair as Hermione stared at Harry in abject horror.

"Blaise, I need some sleep. I've had my shields fully up all night. I don't think he got past them, but I can't guarantee that. I'm dead on my feet. He'll go for Pansy next, I know it. She's our weak link when it comes to mind magic. Until we are completely sure," Draco broke off with a huge yawn, "of his real allegiance, he can't know we've got Harry, Ron, Ginny, and Hermione here. You need to lock Pansy's mind down this morning. I haven't got the energy to do it."

Hermione was shocked at just how exhausted Draco appeared to be. He gestured vaguely around the table, his eyes drooping then snapping open again. "Just as I was leaving," he paused to give another huge yawn, "he said, and I quote although I won't attempt the accent, "Pansy and Theo are impressive, but even when they think I'm compromised, they still only see what I want them to see." He also told me outright that he'd been inside The Dark Lord'smind on several occasions. I think he was trying to wear me down."

Theo's jaw dropped and even Blaise looked shocked by that revelation. "What a fucking cheek!" Theo exploded. "He knew we were there all along?! But! We were... Well, I thought we were discreet!"

"I'm going to bed," Draco said. "Sorry, I'm, I just can't right now." Giving what appeared to be a herculean effort, Draco stood up and pushed away from the table.

"No worries," Blaise said, looking concerned as he watched Draco stumble out into the hall.

"Well fuck!" Theo muttered crossly. "Does that change the plans at all?"

"No," Blaise shook his head. "But it does raise the stakes rather a lot. Stick to what we said, and do not leave your mind unguarded around any of them.

Hermione knocked gently on Draco's bedroom door at lunchtime. The cowardly part of her half hoped that he was still sleeping, that he wouldn't hear her, and that she could walk away knowing that she had tried to talk to him, but the braver part of her knew that was just a giant cop out. Having done nothing but think about Draco all morning, she knew she had to face him at some point. "Come in," he called, his usually refined voice sounding sleep roughened and husky.

Hermione's heart pounded as she turned the door handle. "Do you mind me coming in?" she asked hesitantly.

He turned over, rubbing his eyes, then staring up at her in surprise. "Of course not. I was expecting Pansy, to be honest, but she hammers on the door like she's trying to knock it down. So does Ginny, for that matter, and the others don't knock at all. I should have known that soft tap was you."

Hermione smiled as she approached the bed with Blaise's words from the previous afternoon playing on a loop in her head. "He doesn't bite, you know?" "How are you feeling now?" she asked.

"Better," Draco admitted with a yawn. "A lot better, in fact. I apologize for my appalling language when I arrived home. As you probably noticed, I was a little distressed."

"That's quite okay. Pansy wants you to take these." She held out two vials of potion with a hesitant smile, but Draco just took them, downed them both together, then followed them up with several hasty gulps of water and a wince. "Don't you want to know what they were?!" she asked, feeling amused.

He shrugged. "Not really. If they're from Pans it doesn't matter, they'll help."

Hermione nodded. "What does this all mean, Draco?" she asked, chewing uneasily on her bottom lip. "I don't want to sound like I'm panicking all the time, and I'm not, really I'm not, I just, I've, well, we've all been through a lot already, and I just don't like the sound of what's happening now."

Draco considered her as he swung his legs around to the side of the bed. "For now, it just means that we need to be even more careful than usual," he said eventually. He sighed, then patted the bed beside him. She sat down awkwardly, wondering absently what her thirteen year old self would say about her sharing a bed with a semi naked Draco Malfoy. "We knew this would come to a head at some stage," he admitted, summoning a t-shirt with a wave of his hand, and she couldn't help staring as he pulled it on. "It has to. There's just no way of moving things forwards without a big blowup occurring at some point. I just wasn't expecting that to happen quite this soon."

He stretched, then opened the curtains with another wave of his arm before turning to study her in the afternoon light. "Dolohov and I are equal in rank. We have very similar personalities, and by the sounds of things, his group knows almost as much about us as we know about them. The trouble is, I won't take orders from him, and he won't take them from me. I guess in some ways, we're both as stubborn as each other."

Despite how serious the situation was, Hermione laughed. "Typical male egos then," she said, and Draco surprised her by chuckling softly in reply.

"Something like that," he agreed. "I wouldn't let him in my mind last night, even though it nearly killed me to keep him out. The way I saw it, letting him in would have been an admission that he was magically stronger than I am, and he's not. We've dueled plenty of times before in training, and we're pretty evenly matched."

"So, basically," Hermione said, "instead of you both admitting that you were plotting the same kind of espionage and agreeing to work together, you both had, what's the common name for it? a pissing contest all night?"

Draco threw his head back and laughed loudly. "Bloody hell Granger, you know how to sting a man's ego, don't you?"

"Well," she laughed, "My best friends have always been male. I did notice a few things along the way."

Draco watched her with what looked like admiration on his face. "I didn't think Potter and Weasley were quite so competitive."

"They're not," she conceded. "But they bicker a lot and don't forget that Ron has five brothers. They vie for leadership amongst themselves all the time." She bit back a sudden wave of sadness at the thought of the Weasley family. She missed them all terribly and desperately hoped that they were all safe.

"It seems obvious to me," she continued once her wave of emotions had passed, "Dolohov's parting words to you were his way of admitting that he couldn't get into your mind. He accepted that he couldn't outright best you, so he took a different route and confessed that he knows what you've been doing. He's given you the perfect opportunity to open up to him now, hasn't he? See if the others agree, but that's my take on things."

Draco stared out of the window, watching the drizzle thoughtfully. "You might be right," he finally admitted. "My brain was too frazzled by that point to take much notice. But I couldn't have opened up to him just then, not that I would have done so without thinking it through first anyway, because he apparated away directly after saying that."

"Which kind of backs up my theory, doesn't it?" she persisted. "If he still couldn't get into your mind, even when you were exhausted, then he knew he was stymied. So, he said that instead, then apparated away in case you tried to hit out at him defensively. He seems to understand you rather well, Draco. He probably knows you need time to think it all through."

"Hmmm," Draco muttered, looking more disgruntled than ever. "I take it Blaise was plotting something dastardly this morning? I saw his maps out."

"Yes," Hermione said, accepting the change of subject graciously. "He's sent Harry, Ron, and Ginny to scope out Dean and Seamus' place, and asked Theo to try and figure out Yaxley's true allegiance."

"Busy day then," Draco said. "Where's Pans?"

"Gone to work." Draco's eyes widened into such alarm that Hermione sucked in a frightened breath. "What? What is it? What's wrong?" she gasped.

"Did Blaise lock her mind before she went?"

Anxiously Hermione shook her head. "No. She wouldn't let him. She insisted she'll be fine and that she'll press her mark if she's not."

"She's too stubborn for her own good, that one." Draco sighed, then turned to face her again. "This is all going to kick off very soon, Hermione. We're all over the place at the moment, we've got to get a better grip on what's happening. There are far too many variables, far too many things that could go wrong," he broke off, closing his eyes. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to frighten you, I'm not usually like this, in fact, I don't know what's wrong with me at the moment. There's just not that many people I can let my guard down with, and, well, Dolohov rattled me last night."

Hermione stared at him, suddenly, clearly understanding what was happening. "This is the magic at work, isn't it?" she breathed. "I've been feeling so much stronger since yesterday afternoon when you cleared my aura. Be honest, Draco, Blaise thinks you weakened yourself by healing me. Is he right?"

Hermione's eyes widened in horror as he nodded, and she was suddenly struck by an overpowering surge of protectiveness towards him. He'd given part of himself to her to help her heal, and now he was paying the price. The extreme exhaustion he'd displayed when he'd returned home that morning hadn't just been caused by his extensive use of occlumency.

"You knew, didn't you?" she asked, staring at him wildly. "You knew what was happening all along, and you didn't say anything because you didn't want to pressure me into bonding with you! Draco, anything could have happened to you last night. I can't believe you put yourself in that position! You took Theo's patrol to protect him too, even when you knew you were weaker than normal. Oh, I can't believe you put yourself in that much danger for us-"

"Hermione, shhh sweetheart!" he took the hand she was using to gesticulate wildly around the room and held it gently, "calm down! Are you always this dramatic?"

"Yes! No! I can't believe….." she trailed off, suddenly seeing him clearly for the very first time. His loyalty and his selflessness were quite extraordinary. "I look after everyone in this house," he'd once said, and now she could see that he really did. It was suddenly all too much for her to bear. "Kiss me Draco. Now!" she demanded, unable to bear the distance between them any longer.

Draco laughed. "Dramatic and demanding. I'm not kissing you because you've got yourself into a panic, Hermione. If I'm kissing you it's because we both want that."

She nodded, desperately wanting to give some healing back to him. "Do you want to bond with me?"

He blinked curiously up at her as if he was struggling to understand the question. "Of course I do. I've never wanted anything more."

"Well, so do I," she admitted. "I didn't want it initially, as you know. I was horrified, and then yesterday, everything sort of changed when we danced together. It was like a blockage in my mind that fell away, and I finally saw the real you. And then I talked with Blaise this morning, and he made me see things differently, and the thought of you being in danger last night is crazily terrifying to me, even now."

Draco smirked, looking inordinately pleased with her verbal tirade. "That must have been quite a talk you and Blaise had,"

"It was. It was…. enlightening," she admitted, looking at their still clasped hands. "I think you struggled so much last night because we are unbonded. So if our bonding keeps you and everyone else safer, I think we should do it."

"Hermione, stop. Listen to me. Darling, I'd kiss you in a heartbeat," Draco said earnestly, "but not for the reasons you're giving me now. I don't want to kiss you because you're worried about me or because you want to protect me. Believe me. I can take care of myself when the need arises." He paused to blow out a long calming breath then turned to face her fully. "I'd kiss you because there's nothing I want to do more. Sometimes I struggle to breathe without you. When I'm away from you, I feel incomplete. I want to protect you. I want to watch you smile and laugh. Hell, I want to be the reason you smile and laugh. I want to walk on the beach early in the morning with you and take you flying on my broom. I want to share every single one of my days with you, for the rest of my life," he admitted, staring intently at her bitten thumb nail. "I've felt that way for a very long time. If you can forgive my terrible past behavior towards you, and if you can honestly say that you feel the same way, then I'll kiss you." He looked up, meeting her shocked gaze with his own stormy, turbulent eyes

For the first time since she had arrived at the cottage, Hermione met the intensity they held without flinching.

"You have to accept both sides of me, though," he warned. "If we do this, you have to accept the Death Eater side of me too. We talked about this before, and you know there's a side of me that you despise. There's a side of me that wears a mask and tortures and kills people when I have to. You need to know that I don't do those things through choice, but I do them. I saw your face when I was washing blood off of my hands in the sink a while back, and you were horrified. Hermione, I know you're a logical person, but this decision can only be made with your heart. If you can truly accept all of me, even the parts of me that you don't like, then come here."

Hermione's eyes blurred with unshed tears. Nobody had ever spoken to her so honestly before. To the best of her knowledge, no one, not even Ron, had ever felt like that about her either. Draco, for all of his past snark and sarcasm, had been open with her ever since she had arrived here, and her talk with Blaise had released her very last objection to being together with him. Slowly she nodded. "I really do," she whispered.

Silently Draco released her hand, then held out his arms, waiting as she moved forwards into his embrace. He cupped her face in his hands then stroked her hair back, making her shiver just from his gentle touch. She saw the fear in his eyes, and she saw it disappear as she smiled softly up at him. "Sure?" he asked. She nodded as his lips tugged up into a slow, genuinely happy smile. They both moved forwards at the same time, and she closed her eyes as his lips brushed against hers. A curious feeling flowed through her as she opened her mouth to accept his kiss. It began in her heart then radiated out, spreading warmth through her entire body. She whimpered, instinctively moving closer to him and bringing her arms up around his neck. Every single ache and pain in her body seemed to ease as his magic flowed freely into her.

Hermione's skin heated, and she felt the steady pulse of Draco's magic mingling with her own as he continued to kiss her. The feeling grew even more intense, and when she finally opened her eyes, she saw her own skin, Draco's skin, and the walls of the cottage glowing with a brilliant, golden white light.

A movement caught her eye, and she reluctantly pulled back at the same moment Draco did. Ginny stood in the doorway, blushing furiously and with her mouth hanging wide open. "I…. umm, I…. I'm so sorry!" she said, flustered.

"It's alright, Red," Draco said, smiling softly up at her, "you didn't know. Did you feel it though?"

Ginny nodded. "Yeah. We all did," Ron said, stepping up behind his sister. "The walls just glowed too. You alright, 'Mione?"

Gazing fondly up at Draco, she nodded. She pressed a finger to her still tingling lips then smiled. She felt dazed and slightly woozy, but for the first time in recent memory, she felt that things were finally the way they needed to be.